Free The Source by Brian Lumley Page A

central blaze. The scaffolding supported a platform of timbers which circled the weird light source, reminding Jazz vaguely of the ring system round Saturn. Leading inwards from the ring, a walkway proceeded right to the edge of the sphere of light.
    Externally, backed up against the black, wormhole-riddled walls—evenly spaced around the perimeter and massively supported on a framework of stanchions—three twin-mounted Katushev cannons pointed their muzzles point-blank at the blinding centre. Crews were in position, their sights aligned on the sphere, their faces white and alien-looking with headset antennae and insect goggle-eyes trained on the dazzling target.
    Between the guns and the sphere stood a ten-foot high electrified fence, with a gate where the timber walkway spanned the gap between the Saturn rings and the centre. There was some motion down there, nervous and jumpy, but not much; the stench of fear was so thick in the supposedly conditioned air that Jazz could almost feel it like slime on his skin.
    He gripped the wooden rail, let the entire scene print itself indelibly on his brain, said: “What in the name of all that’s … ?” He turned his head to stare at Khuv. “I saw the arrival of those guns that night you caught me. The electrified fence, too. I thought they were meant to defend Perchorsk against attack from the outside, which struck me as making no sense. But from the
inside ? Christ, that doesn’t make much sense either! I mean, what is that thing? And why are those men down there so desperately afraid of it?”
    And suddenly, without any prompting, he knew the answer before it came. Not all of the answer but enough. Suddenly everything fitted: all he’d seen, and all Khuv had told him. And especially the flying monstrosity that the American fighters had burned to hell and sent crashing to earth in a ball of flame from high over the west coast of the Hudson Bay. And speaking of flames, wasn’t that a four-man flame-thrower squad down there on the Saturn’s-rings platform? Yes, it was.
    Vyotsky had come up quietly behind Jazz and Khuv where they stood at the rail. He put a huge hand on Jazz’s shoulder, causing him to start. “As to what it is, British,” he said, “it’s some sort of gate or door. And as such we’re not frightened of it.” But Jazz noted how for once Vyotsky’s tone was muted, perhaps even a little awed.
    â€œKarl is right,” said Khuv. “No, we’re not frightened of the Gate itself—but I defy any sane person not to fear the things that sometimes come through it!”

Chapter Four
    The Gate To … ?
    THEY STARTED DOWN THE FINAL FLIGHT OF WOODEN STAIRS to the Saturn’s rings of spiderweb platform, then moved round the central sphere until they approached the walkway leading to its coldly incandescent heart. Ten feet away from the gate in the electric fence Khuv halted, turned to Jazz and said: “Well, what do you make of it?” He could only be talking about the glaring yet enigmatic globe which stood on the other side of the gate, maybe seven paces away. It was quite motionless, it made no sound, and yet it was menacing.
    â€œYou said that this was where the atomic pile stood,” Jazz answered. “What, in mid-air? No, OK, I’m being facetious. So what you mean is that after the blow-back everything within sixty-five feet or so of the centre of that … that—whatever it is—was vaporized out of existence, right?”
    â€œThat would have been my explanation, too,” Khuv nodded, “but incorrectly. As I’ve already pointed out, conversion is the word. According to Viktor Luchov, the energy of the trapped beam was attracted by the latent energy—or the energy in action—in the pile. You could compare it to the way a nail is drawn to a magnet. In the final fusing there was no explosion. Perhaps there was an implosion, I don’t